To the World Displayed. - Clarke.
[2] Cape Bojador is imagined to have been the _Canarea_ of Ptolemy. -
Clarke I. 15
[3] The _barcha_ is a sort of brig with topsails, having all its yards on
one long pole without sliding masts, as still used by tartans and
settees. The _barcha longa_ is a kind of small galley, with one mast
and oars. - Clarke, I. p. 153.
[4] Clarke says in the same year 1418. But this could not well be, as the
Discovery of Puerto Santo was made so late as the 1st of November of
that year. The truth is, that only very general accounts of these
early voyages remain in the Portuguese historians. - E.
[5] Such is the simple and probable account of the discovery of Madeira in
Purchas. Clarke has chosen to embellish it with a variety of very
extraordinary circumstances, which being utterly unworthy of credit,
we do not think necessary to be inserted in this place. See Progress
of Maritime Discovery, I. 157. - E.
[6] In the Introduction to the World Displayed, Dr Johnson remarks on this
story, that "green wood is not very apt to burn; and the heavy rains
which fall in these countries must surely have extinguished the
conflagration were it ever so violent." Yet in 1800 Radnor forest
presented a conflagration of nearly twenty miles circumference, which
continued to spread for a considerable time, in spite of every effort
to arrest its progress. - E.
[7] De Barros; Lafitan; Vincent, in the Periplus of the Erythrean sea;
Meikle, in his translation of the Lusiad. Harris, in his Collection,
Vol. I. p. 663, postpones this discovery to the year 1439. - Clarke.
[8] In Purchas this person is named Antonio Gonsalvo; but the authority of
Clarke, I. 188, is here preferred. - E.
[9] Progr. of Nav. Disc. I. 184.
[10] This tribe of Assenhaji, or Azanaghi, are the Zenhaga of our maps,
and the Sanhagae of Edrisi and Abulfeda. They are at present
represented as inhabiting at no great distance from the coast of
Africa, between the rivers Nun and Senegal. - Cl.
[11] No such name occurs in the best modern charts, neither is there a
river of any consequence on the coast which answers to the distance.
The first large river to the south of the Nuno is the Mitomba, or
river of Sierra Liona, distant about 130 maritime miles. - E.
SECTION VI.
_Discovery and Settlement of the Acores_[1].
These nine islands, called the Acores, Terceras, or Western islands, are
situated in the Atlantic, 900 miles west from Portugal, at an almost
equal distance from Europe, Africa, and America.
